The Night Of Broken Glass

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All Rise...

Judge Victor Valdivia once had a night of broken glass—specifically, when he got drunk and fell on his coffee table.

The Charge

The November 1938 Pogroms.

The Case

First Run Features has put out several DVD documentaries on World War II and
Nazi Germany. Many of them were directed by Michael Kloft, including The Reich Underground and Firestorm, both of which were worth
watching. The Night of Broken Glass is another Kloft release, and you'd
expect it to be in the same thoughtful and well-crafted league as its
predecessors. Sadly, The Night of Broken Glass is the worst DVD release
Kloft has ever produced. It has some fascinating information and rare footage,
but Kloft has completely undermined his research with a colossal mistake in
presentation.

The Night of Broken Glass addresses one of the most infamous
incidents in Nazi Germany's history. Over the night of November 9 to 10, 1938,
Germans were encouraged by the Nazi government to terrorize and assault Jewish
residents and target their businesses, homes, and synagogues throughout Germany
and Austria. The riots (or pogroms, as racially motivated riots are frequently
called) were ostensibly a response to the shooting of a German employee at the
French Embassy by a Jewish German student, but in reality the attacks were a
culmination of the disenfranchisement of Jews that the Nazi regime had been
undertaking since 1933. Though Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels tried to
paint the riots as the spontaneous acts of the German people, in reality they
were orchestrated by government officials, who also ensured that local police
would not defend Jewish victims and local firefighters would do nothing to stop
(and in some cases, would even actively start) fires. When the riots were over,
ninety-one Jews were dead, thousands more had been injured, and various
Jewish-owned businesses had been looted, Jewish homes vandalized, and synagogues
burnt and razed to the ground. After the riots (referred to in Germany as
Kristallnacht, or "The Night of Broken Glass"), the Nazi government
would no longer cloak its anti-Semitism in laws and regulations—it would
actively use violence to arrest, torture, and execute Jews throughout its
occupied territories.

As is the case with his previous DVD documentaries, Kloft has done his
research impeccably. There are many previously unseen police reports and
government documents that chronicle the riots in detail, almost
minute-by-minute. These dispassionate accounts also make clear the government's
deep involvement, even going so far as to target for future scrutiny individual
non-Jewish citizens who attempted to stop the violence or criticize the
government. There are also rare photographs and film excerpts of synagogues on
fire, houses burning as firemen stand around watching, and even of Jewish
families being forcibly evicted from their homes by policemen. There are
interviews with survivors of that night recalling the terror and shock they felt
at what they witnessed, including one who was then a teenage boy and who was
forced to hold his bar mitzvah in his basement by candlelight lest he and his
family be arrested or brutalized.

This is a wealth of fascinating information. Unfortunately, Kloft makes a
huge error in presenting it. Though The Night of Broken Glass only clocks
in at 49 minutes, Kloft employs two narrators—a man and a woman—for
it. To say this is immensely distracting is an understatement. For the first 10
to 15 minutes, you'll be so confused by the conflicting voices that you'll be
unable to focus on the actual information they're reciting. It's even worse as
the documentary progresses and the narrators actually begin to complete each
other's sentences, a cutesy trick that's more appropriate for a morning radio
show than a serious retelling of one of the darkest chapters in human history.
This decision severely undermines The Night of Broken Glass's
effectiveness, since the two narrators prevent the documentary from adequately
conveying the terror and fear of that night. There's a reason documentaries
(except ones presented as oral histories) use only one narrator: it's easier for
viewers to focus on one voice rather than several, especially if the subject is
unfamiliar to them.

As for the DVD itself, it's acceptable. The anamorphic transfer and stereo
mix both adequately present the mixture of archival and more recent footage,
though they're hardly earth-shattering. First Run does deserve credit, though,
for making the transfer anamorphic, which is more than can be said for other
historical DVD companies (i.e. History Channel). The only extras are a text bio
and filmography for Kloft.

It's a shame, then, that Kloft has so badly botched the presentation with
his misguided ideas. Kristallnacht is an important part of the history of Nazi
Germany and he has uncovered some remarkable details, but this DVD is so
difficult to watch that you'll be hard-pressed to make it all the way through.
Even the most avid history buffs will find The Night of Broken Glass a
big letdown, despite Kloft's typically thorough research, and will be tempted to
eject the disc and find a good written account of this story instead.